The Colour of Words

1.

‘Move. Now.’

The words sliced through the humid air like silver daggers, piercing a hole in the inane chatter and drawing heads like magnets. The prattle turned to whispers, and just as a stone causes ripples when it is thrown into a lake, a small passage started to appear through the queue of people, growing bigger as the confusion turned to certainty: almost as if the sentence had had a literal affect.

When enough eyes were on me, and the pause in the chatter was quiet enough, I followed my words through the parting crowd to the front of the line of people waiting to be served.

Holding my head high, I marched forwards, eyes fixed straight ahead and only staring round to challenge any straying eyes whose owners, once my icy look had frozen on them, visibly shrank back in alarm. My look of distain was completed by the sneer playing frostily on my lips, and as long as I kept it up, no-one dared argue. Or maybe they’d just got used to it.

As we reached the front of the queue, Tally, who was following me, stood on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear, ‘Y’know, I don’t think we should keep doing that. It kinda seems, I dunno, rude?’ I love that girl, but seriously, she has no idea.

I spun on my heel so I was facing her. Well, I was more looking down on her, with her being nearly 6 inches shorter than me. It happens with a lot of people.

‘Tally, shut your mouth and buy your grub,’ I ordered, louder than really necessary. But my words had an effect. She sidestepped me meekly to get to the counter.

‘Just chips please.’ The dinner lady- Cassandra it seemed, by the name on her badge, but what with her nose, which seemed to sort have turned into her mouth half way down, and the huge number of chins that wobbled precariously with every movement she made, I was seriously thinking of re-naming her to something that suited her a little bit more- shovelled a whole load of the great greasy wedges into a polystyrene container and dumped it on the counter. As she did so, Tally turned back to me.

‘I still think it’s, like, a bit too, y’know, mean?’

‘Tals, just shut-up now, yeah? You got your lunch, now eat it.’

As we walked away from the still lengthening queue of people lining up to buy their food, Tally, munching on a chip, her forehead still furrowed, pointed a greasy finger in the direction of it. She opened her mouth as if about to say something, but before any actual words formed, I sighed.

‘Look, Tals, if people minded that much, they would make a fuss. I mean, they even moved out the way! Anyway, it’s not actually as if it’s anything major.’

She was quiet for a moment, but her eyes were still searching for something and just as I thought I’d shut her up, she said softly, ‘She minds. Her. There.’

Reluctantly, I followed her finger, right across the hall and over to the busy lunch queue. Many people were looking our way, but as my narrowed glare passed onto them, they looked away, embarrassed and actually, come to think of it, frightened. But suddenly, I found her, and my heart gave a jolt of something; recognition, I told myself fiercely. We stared at each other for a few long seconds. Her eyes were glaring directly right back at me and for the first time in like, ever, I was the first one to break away.

Tally, her attention span being like that of an excited ant, had already lost interest, and was tugging ferociously on my elbow, and pointing excitedly in the corner.

‘Look! Over there!’

Pulling my gaze away from the over-familiar face, I snapped back into reality.

‘Who?’

‘Well, duh! babe. The girls?’

‘Oh, yeah, obviously.’ I was aware of myself nodding, but my heart wasn’t really in it.

Tally had already left my side like a bullet from a gun, and was side-stepping and weaving her way around bored, sweaty kids- laden down with bags and lunch trays- over to the rest of the gang, who were slouching on the end of a table in one of the far corners of the bustling hall.

‘So?’

The question threw me off course. It had come in stereo from three separate mouths, of whose brains were not genetically linked in any way as far as I knew, and it was all too much for a girl to handle on a depressingly wet Monday lunchtime. Even if the girl in question was happened to be, well, me. And even I - actually, especially I - don’t give up that easily. But anyway there had been extenuating circumstances, so I had reason to answer in the simplest way I knew. Even though I totally knew what they were getting at. But still.

‘So what?’

I’d hardly even sat down before they were onto me, like bees to a honey pot.

‘So, who the hell was that?’

I swung my bag under the table (although this is not always the best of ideas: you never really know what could be festering silently beneath it) and sat down heavily on a chair that had already been drawn out for me. Shows how eager the greedy little bees were to know what interesting news I had that they could lay their sticky little pincers on. Or maybe its antennae. Whatever.

‘Well?’

‘God, you guys! Just chill, okay?’ I snapped.

They were leaning so far forward in their seats that they were all practically laying on the table, covering their shirts in God-knows-what. I couldn’t help cringing.

‘Seriously guys…’ I was biding my time until the inevitable happened, when I was interrupted by a simultaneous groan that echoed through my ears.

‘Just get on with it!’

‘I don’t know what you're talking about!’ I practically screamed out of frustration at their blatent curiousity. And annoyance that I totally did. Already, heads had started turning, and I was getting mega annoyed. It isn’t every day you saw a yelling match between girls at our school, although actually, it totally is, so I don’t know why half of them even bothered turning their scrawny little heads.

‘Yeah, what are you going on about?’ A little voice came from beside me, making me jump, because in all the drama, I had completely forgotten that Tally was there, bless her.

‘That girl!’ They were yelling now, and more heads were turning with every increasing decibel. ‘That girl that has been following you around for God knows how long, and was, like, giving you the evil eyes every like, five seconds and who you’ve been ignoring since like, ever! That’s who!’ Granted, they didn’t say this completely in unison, but it was the overall effect.

‘Oh what, you mean the one behind her?’ Tally said thoughtfully, because she had finally cottoned on. Then I realised what she had said, and I swear blind that by that point every head in the 100 metre radius was pointing in our direction.

‘Oh, yeah.’

Slowly, I turned around in my seat, biding my time and figuring out what the hell to say I was going to say next.

The sunlight in front of me was blocked by a tall, lanky figure, who by the looks of things was staring down at me, but through my squinted eyes could just well have been glaring down at me. Actually, come to think of it, that was totally what she was doing.

I swallowed, something which I haven’t done for a long time-and not just because I hadn’t eaten for the last 36 hours- and because everyone in the room was straining their ears to hear what I was going to say next, the sound echoed for miles.

The figure carried on glaring.

It took all my courage not to scream, but to keep my voice steady and say, as politely and un-sarcastically as possible, ‘Hi, Hilda.’

And that was all it took.